1) Shorin Ryu Karate2) Yes3) It is pretty much full contact, it's point sparring so hitting as hard as you can isn't really usefull. We all show control.Any belt under brown wears head, stomache, foot, shin, and hand gear. You lose the shin gear when u feel like it, you lose the stomache gear at brown belt, and lose the head gear at black.

2. Yup. Sunday is the day for sparring, but it is interwoven into the other days depending on who is teaching and who is learning.

3. As I'm assuming we're talking about free sparring here, the level of contact is set by the lower belt. I don't mind some contact to my chest, but I'd be less than thrilled if I was hit that hard in the head. Usually, the only protection is a cup. I think the key words to remember are "mutual respect."

1) Shorin Ryu2) Yes3) Light to Medium, however, my sensei was trained in a school where black belts were aloud to do full contact, I don't know what his policy is on that, because we only have one black belt in the school.

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"Karate practice is for the whole life; while one breaths, one practices."

Ok, now that we've gotten some good responses, what do you guys think about the kyokushin styles emphasis on padless full contact sparring, only rule being no fist-to-head strikes (kicks and knees legal)?

do pads and point sparring take away from conditioning and effective use of what you've learned?

I bring up this threat because most of my family has trained in shotokan and shorin ryu, but I'm planning on the kyokushin route (daido juku once it comes to the US). We had a conversation about the sparring and the fact the shotokan dojo they've trained it only had point sparring and very few of them have gotten really hit. Not that I'm calling it a mcdojo, its got a legit lineage and free of the other warning signs, but I don't agree with endless kata and no realistic application. So I wanted to get an idea of what others train in and their opinions.

_________________________Am I crazy, or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?

Style is based on Goju-Ryu.Yes we do free sparring regularly and we start doing it from white belt level. The protective gear we use are hand and feet protectors - light pads - mouth guards and cups for the guys. Contact is something mutually agreed upon by the 2 people sparring, usually determined byt the lower ranks. Generally the white belts and some of the girls will prefer very little contact but when 2 black belts or 2 testosterone driven men of any rank - go at it it's pretty well full contact. Having said that, most of the girls go at it just as hard as the guys.